I love me some solid Magic. Through the power of competitive players there is a tournament running almost every Saturday and Sunday that has reach through the most popular stateside Magic sites. Grand Prix Nashville was this past weekend. Star City Games 2010 Open Invitational and the first of their 2011 Open Series events are next weekend. 2010 Worlds is the weekend just after that. It's an entire truckload of high-level Magic through the holiday season.

Would it surprise you to know that I'm getting a bit itchy, hot under the collar, and hyped up about these types of events? What business does an EDH-loving, Stack-building, unskilled whelp like me have with these big shows?

Do you suppose I'd like to actually play in these things?

Casual players who want to try more competitive things isn't that uncommon, and whether you're just such a player looking to try a new direction I hope today will tip the Balance on the coin.

You Must Be This Tall to Ride

Tournaments, to the uninitiated, are intimidating. I'm not going to skirt the point: tournaments come with a completely different set of experiences and stereotypes than kitchen tables and casual meet-ups. These can be positive:

• Effective rules enforcement (with proper staffing and judge training)
• Skill rewarding
• Networking opportunities abound
• Prizes to generate local/regional Magic interest

And negative:

• Opportunities to attempt rules lawyering/abuse
• Targeted for theft
• Requires significant, intense devotion of time
• Abrasive social situations and interactions

There are more items to each but these are the points. Let's start with the positives.

Effective Rules Enforcement

I've played many games where some interaction or sequence comes up that no one can really figure out, or a fuzzy outcome greatly benefits (or is a detriment to) one player over others. These situations rarely happen in properly judged events.

Situations still arise, however unlike your local library the odds are superb that a judge or someone with rules knowledge will be available to assist you. Whether it is something simple such as a missed trigger noticed immediately or complex as a series of statements and subtle actions performed by your opponent, judges have the duty to ensure the game is held to the same level equitably for both players.

If you haven't had the pleasure of talking to a judge (and they are more than just bastions of Magic rules knowledge – they're awesome people and quite often Magic players as well) then you'll be delighted to know that they provide a number of awesome resources:

• Official Oracle rules text for any card, including creature type updates and changes
• Resolution of issues presented during game play
• Clarification on specific interactions and cards (like Humility)

They aren't babysitters or trash collectors, despite what some individual actions would imply, but impartial places of questions. They can't help you in the sense of making play recommendations but they will stand and watch if you or your opponent is struggling to understand a situation to ensure the tournament progresses.

Stonewalling (refusing to communicate), running to the bathroom, taking phone calls, and other tactics that are employed in casual games will not go unpunished if brought to judges attention. You must be willing to unafraid to call a judge even if you yourself are at fault, like accidentally drawing too many cards, a few cards slip out of the riffle shuffle and flop face up, or you Forget a trigger.

Judges are impartial but they also require honesty to function. If you do your part it becomes easier to hold you opponents to the same standard.

Tournaments Reward Skill

Luck is an oft-debated part of Magic. Sufficiently randomizing your deck through multiple pile, riffle, and side shuffles helps ensure integrity, playing to your fullest is an entirely separate matter. Great decks don't just craft themselves in Limited. Tuning and playing your deck well, especially against a varied field of other powerful decks, is not simple in the slightest.

Skill is playing good Magic. That is to say that most players you will encounter in tournaments:

• Have rules knowledge, especially about the cards in popular decks
• Understand sequencing within the rules and what can be done at every step
• Have played many, many games of Magic and are confident in their abilities
• Come with a competitive mindset and will generally play to win every time
• Expect accountability to actions within and outside of the game

All of these features are the hallmarks of great players. Dabbling in the idea of taking a deck to FNM is still a far cry from taking on a Grand Prix or PTQ, but both should be approached in the same meticulous, professional manner: skill is a trait acquired through repeated practice and adhering to tournament convention.

Practicing playing is just one part of the skill equation: finding the right players to play with is another. Without Feedback from those outside, or opposing, your game you'll miss many of the early opportunities to make correction and, hopefully, avoid practicing something that doesn't work.

If you don't think you're moving in the right direction and picking up the features listed above you should seriously consider scaling your expectations towards the appropriate skill level. Side drafts and Grinders provide opportunities to face stiffer competition without sticking your neck too far out.

And if you're winning or almost winning those you're doing something right.

Networking Opportunities Abound

It would be easy to simply assume tournaments are just about the finishing line: prizes. However while 1,500 players (or more!) show up for Grand Prix events only a small handful will make it to the second day. Searching out new contacting, making friends with skilled players, and making the time to discuss the format(s) du jour is one of the biggest highlights of any event.

Even great players hit a wall (like an abysmal Sealed pool or horrific hangover) and taking the moment to play with or against them can only be helpful. If you ask nicely, some will chat with you for a few minutes. You can railbird – watch them play their games – and perhaps ask them about their decisions. If you know a few sharp local players who consistently do well at PTQs and other events then finding ways to play with them also works.

No man is an Island, and trying to fight your way through events alone is a miserable Nightmare. Networking with other players, working together to tune and hone skills, is the best way to approach big events. Splitting hotel rooms, carpooling, or even just friendly support through the day are huge benefits.

Who wouldn't you want to be a team player yourself? Be the team player and you'll find plenty of opportunities to get more than what you give.

Prizes Generate Interest in Magic Locally

Which sounds more appealing: come pay to watch a movie, or come pay for one movie ticket and get two? Getting more for the baseline is always an awesome thing. And like all other hobbies, Magic needs champions to build interest. Not necessarily the victorious winners from events (though they certainly don't hurt) but features and proponents of ways to play the game that are relevant to a community.

One of the trickiest issues that abound is that of growing a small troupe of players into a larger base of reliable locals. I don't have the answers, but Wizards does offer a few through local game stores and the Wizard's Play Network. A significant portion of local support comes through DCI sanctioned events. While free promos for simply playing a few games feeds some players, others (like you if you're reading this) want more. Sanctioned events generally provide solid prize support and moving up the ladder of competition yields progressive greater and greater prizes.

But first you need those seeds and champions of the cause of "Head to the store and sign up." Prizes are one of the very appealing carrots out there for players to chase after. Except until the cartoons, someone does get reach.

It all starts somewhere and jumping into the local scene will encourage more events. The rest is a slippery slope argument but you can imagine what a growing group of players all competing can be rewarded with.

The Dark Side

Most tournaments, however, come with things that shouldn't exist yet unfortunately do. As the list of positives show there's a lot going for these events. The rest are the things you'll run into and should be aware of how to handle.

Rules Lawyering and Abuse

Knowing the rules is important. Artificially leveraging the rules to force another player into a corner is entirely forgettable.

There's a clear line between holding your opponent accountable and removing the ability if your opponent to play in their style: player intent. Shortcuts in a game as complex as Magic are a near necessity. There are simply too many things for the brain to remember with 100% accuracy at all times. Therefore we unconsciously create shortcuts in interactions and events to effectively process it all.

The danger lies in when these shortcuts aren't clearly shared with everyone. While you probably know exactly you're doing, and why, your opponent may not have any clue despite their evident ability. Those of us familiar with Magic Online will know that there's a huge different between being auto-prompted for the points where we may want to interact with an opponent and how things work in the paper world.

Requesting clarity can be an awkward thing, especially when you're the one getting confused by requests. If there is any miscommunication or confusion between you and your opponent at any time the best solution is to simply call a judge. As described above, their duty is to ensure that communication is clear. Letting someone work angles outside of actual gameplay isn't something to be intimidated by.

Theft Occurs

Did you really expect several dozen players, each holding a hundred dollars or more in small cardboard pieces, to avoid being targeted by thieves? The fact is that every larger event (100+ players) that I've attended has had an issue with "lost" and stolen items.

There are three main features to avoiding loss you need to know:

• Bring only what you need to play and trade – mitigation through risk minimization
• Always keep your bag and deck close to your body, personally visible if possible – mitigation through conscious awareness of property
• Bring reliable, trustworthy friends to help track everyone's property – mitigation through group protectiveness

There are literally hundreds of little tips I could run out (Sit next to, not opposite of, your trade partner. Never turn your back on a trade in progress. Don't let strangers leaf through your deck in downtime between rounds,) but the point is that common sense and a slight obsession with securing property has kept me, fortunately, from losing anything.

It could happen at the next event but preparing properly is far better than ignoring an unfortunate truth.

Time Investment is Required

Those parts about being skilled and rewarding skill? It takes a lot of time. The number thrown around is 10,000 hours as the amount of time required to become truly proficient or "to master something". While "mastery" can be a bit relative it will still take a daunting amount of time to Acquire honed skills and practice with decks.

If you aren't prepared to commit to it you may have trouble following through at events. Having fun and getting a lot out of tournament certainly doesn't require much more than just showing up and being friendly, but actually finding repeatable and consistent success will require devotion.

And the news doesn't get better: you will need to continuously practice and stave off ring rust by playing Magic regularly once you've hit a steady stride. It isn't like reading a book – once and done – but more like a Mental Discipline. Finding your balancing point is one thing, balancing it there is another more difficult task.

Abrasive Social Interaction

Finally, however, I come to the end of the highlight reel of bad things: creeps, jerks, and asses. There're out there and they may just happen to play Magic. If you're not careful they may just be you.

It doesn't seem to matter the type of event or time of year, I can always Recall an individual who seemed to interpret competition as "Opponents are no longer fellow humans." You don't have to like your opponent. You don't have to appreciate (or even listen to) "advice" given to you by them. But you have an obligation as a player to do your part to treat others with basic dignity and respect.

No one is above or beneath you as a person. Skill, achievements, socioeconomic status: there are things that can be defined in superlative ways. But everyone is a person and doesn't deserve to be ignored, insulted, or attacked.

There's an expression that I hear commonly in gaming circles. I even heard it right before the finals of Grand Prix Nashville Sunday night in the background of the GGS Live feed.

"That's gay!"

I hate that. I hate that phrase with a passion. It's one of the few phrases that will get me riled up in a hurry and break social convention by telling total strangers at events to knock it off. I have friends and family who are homosexual. We have gamers and players in both the Magic and greater gaming community at large who are homosexual. To exclaim that in the all-too-often derisive or satirically venomous manner is the same as to insult every one of them as a human.

Whatever your personal beliefs and however you interpret them to view other people is irrelevant within games. Phrases like those are dangerously close to personal attacks and should simply cease to exist in gamer vocabulary. It's that simple.

And, unfortunately, that's just the tip of the Iceberg. There are a lot of ways other players and spectators can be uncomfortable. Again, when in doubt call a judge but understand that the DCI doesn't govern attitude or tone outside of hateful slurs. Be prepared to shrug off the few creeps and ignore the annoying jerks between meeting the genuinely nice players that make networking happen.

That's a Wrap

There is a lot more to tournaments and getting through these types of events then what I've touched on here. It's up to you to dig deep and search for the tools you need – Limited and Constructed information, best practices and approaches to the game, and everything else you need is in a sea of information.

You have better get started reading and researching – time is ticking on your 10,000 hours.